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Lou Silver Harrison (May 14, 1917 – February 2, 2003) was an American composer. Events 1264 - Battle of Lewes: Henry III of England is captured in France making Simon de Montfort the Year 1917 ( MCMXVII) was a Common year starting on Monday (link will display the full calendar of the Gregorian calendar (or a Common year Events 962 - Translatio imperii: Pope John XII crowns Otto I Holy Roman Emperor, the first Holy Roman Emperor Year 2003 ( MMIII) was a Common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. The United States of America —commonly referred to as the A composer (literally meaning 'one who puts together' is a person who creates Music, usually in the medium of notation, for Interpretation and Performance He was a student of Henry Cowell, Arnold Schoenberg, and K. Henry Cowell ( March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American Composer, musical theorist, Pianist Arnold Schoenberg ( pronounced ˈʃøːnbɛrk (13 September 1874 &ndash 13 July 1951 was an Austrian and later American Composer, associated with R. T. Wasitodiningrat (Pak Cokro). KPH Notoprojo, also known as Tjokrowasito, Wasitodipuro, Wasitodiningrat, among other names ( March 17 1909 &ndash August

Harrison is particularly noted for incorporating elements of the music of non-Western cultures into his work, with a number of pieces featuring traditional Indonesian gamelan instruments, and several more featuring versions of them made out of tin cans and other materials. The term world music includes Traditional music (sometimes called Folk music or roots music of any culture that are created and played by indigenous musicians The Republic of Indonesia ( (Republik Indonesia is a Country in Southeast Asia. A gamelan is a musical ensemble of Indonesia typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones xylophones drums and gongs bamboo flutes bowed and A musical instrument is a device constructed or modified for the purpose of making Music. The majority of his works are written in just intonation rather than the more widespread equal temperament. In music just intonation is any Musical tuning in which the frequencies of Notes are related by Ratios of Whole numbers Any interval Equal temperament is a Musical temperament, or a system of tuning in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical Frequency ratio. Harrison is one of the most prominent composers to have worked with microtones. Microtonal music is Music using microtones — intervals of less than an equally spaced Semitone.

Contents

Biography

Harrison was born in Portland, Oregon, but moved with his family to a number of locations around the San Francisco Bay Area as a child. He graduated from Burlingame High School in Burlingame, California in 1934, then he moved to San Francisco. Burlingame High School is a public High school in Burlingame California. Burlingame is a city in San Mateo County, California. It is located on the San Francisco Peninsula and has a significant shoreline on San Francisco [1] The diverse music which he was to exposed to there, including Cantonese opera, Native American music, Mexican music, and jazz as well as classical music, was to have a major influence on him. Cantonese opera is one of the major categories in Chinese opera, originating in southern China 's Cantonese culture. American Indian music is the Musics that are shared by or that distinguish American Indian Tribes and First Nations. Jazz is an American Musical art form which originated in the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States Classical music is a broad term that usually refers to mainstream music produced in or rooted in the traditions of Western liturgical and Secular music He also heard recordings of Indonesian music early in life. Indonesia is culturally diverse and every one of the 18000 islands has its own cultural and artistic history and character

Harrison took Henry Cowell's "Music of the Peoples of the World" course, and also studied counterpoint and composition with him. Henry Cowell ( March 11, 1897 – December 10, 1965) was an American Composer, musical theorist, Pianist In Music, counterpoint is the relationship between two or more voices that are independent in contour and Rhythm, and interdependent in Harmony Musical composition is an original piece of Music the structure of a musical piece the process of creating a new He later went to the University of California at Los Angeles to work at the dance department as a dancer and accompanist. The University of California Los Angeles (generally known as UCLA) is a public research university located in Westwood Los Angeles, California, United While there, he took lessons from Arnold Schoenberg which led to an interest in Schoenberg's twelve-tone technique. Arnold Schoenberg ( pronounced ˈʃøːnbɛrk (13 September 1874 &ndash 13 July 1951 was an Austrian and later American Composer, associated with Twelve-tone technique (also dodecaphony, especially in British usage twelve-note composition) is a method of musical composition devised by Arnold The pieces he was writing at this time, however, were largely percussive works using unconventional materials, such as car brake drums, as musical instruments. These pieces were similar to those being written by John Cage around the same time, and the two sometimes worked together. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> John Milton Cage Jr

In 1943, Harrison moved to New York City where he worked as a music critic for the Herald Tribune. While there he met Charles Ives, became his friend, and did a good deal in bringing Ives to the attention of the musical world, which had largely ignored him up to that point. Charles Edward Ives (October 20 1874 – May 19 1954 was an American Composer of modernist Classical music. With the assistance of his mentor Cowell, Harrison prepared and conducted the premiere of Ives's Symphony No. 3, and in return received help from Ives financially. When Ives won the Pulitzer Prize for Music for that piece, he gave half of the money to Harrison. The Pulitzer Prize for Music was first awarded in 1943 Joseph Pulitzer did not call for such a prize in his will but had arranged for a music scholarship to be awarded Harrison also edited a large number of Ives's works, receiving compensation often in excess of what he billed (Miller and Lieberman 1998).

As well as Ives, Harrison supported and promoted the music of other unconventional American composers, including Edgard Varèse and Carl Ruggles as well as Alan Hovhaness[2]. WikipediaWikiProject Composers#Lead section --> Edgard Victor Achille Charles Varèse, whose name was also spelled Edgar Varèse Charles "Carl" Sprague Ruggles ( March 11, 1876 – October 24, 1971) was an American Composer part of the group Alan Hovhaness (Ալան Հովհանես ( March 8, 1911 &ndash June 21, 2000) was an American Composer of Armenian Later during his time in North Carolina, Harrison taught at Black Mountain College. Black Mountain College, founded in 1933 near Asheville North Carolina, was known as one of the leading progressive schools in the United States In 1947, he suffered a nervous breakdown, and moved back to California. California ( is a US state on the West Coast of the United States, along the Pacific Ocean.

Following in the path of Canadian composer Colin McPhee, who had done extensive research in Indonesian music in the 1930s and wrote a number of compositions incorporating Balinese and Javanese elements, Harrison's style began to change, showing the influence of gamelan music more clearly if only in timbre: "It was the sound itself that attracted me. Colin McPhee ( February 15, 1900, in Montreal or Toronto – January 7, 1964, in Los Angeles) was a Bali is an Indonesian island that shares in the Gamelan and various other Indonesian musical styles. The Music of Java embraces a wide variety of styles both traditional and contemporary reflecting the diversity of the island and its lengthy history. A gamelan is a musical ensemble of Indonesia typically featuring a variety of instruments such as metallophones xylophones drums and gongs bamboo flutes bowed and In Music, timbre (ˈtæm-bər' like timber, or, from Fr timbre tɛ̃bʁ is the quality of a Musical note or sound that distinguishes different In New York, when I changed gears out of twelve tonalism, I explored this timbre. The gamelan movements in my Suite for Violin, Piano, and Small Orchestra [1951] are aural imitations of the generalized sounds of gamelan" (ibid, p. 160). Virgil Thomson (with whom Harrison also studied) gave him a copy of Harry Partch's book on musical tuning, Genesis of a Music, which prompted Harrison to start writing music in just intonation. For the American author with a similar name see Virgil Thompson (author Virgil Thomson ( November 25, 1896 - September Harry Partch ( June 24, 1901 &ndash September 3, 1974) was an American Composer and instrument creator In Music, there are two common meanings for tuning: Tuning practice, the act of tuning an instrument or voice In music just intonation is any Musical tuning in which the frequencies of Notes are related by Ratios of Whole numbers Any interval He did not abandon equal temperament altogether, but often expressed a desire to do so. Equal temperament is a Musical temperament, or a system of tuning in which every pair of adjacent notes has an identical Frequency ratio. In an oft-quoted comment referring to the frequency ratios used in just intonation, he said, "I'd long thought that I would love a time when musicians were numerate as well as literate. I'd love to be a conductor and say, 'Now, cellos, you gave me 10:9 there, please give me a 9:8 instead,' I'd love to get that!"

Although much influenced by Asian music, Harrison did not visit the continent until a 1961 trip to Japan and Korea and a 1962 trip to Taiwan (ibid, p. 141). When he returned, he began to set about establishing gamelan orchestras in the United States, and constructed gamelan-type instruments tuned to just pentatonic scales from unusual materials such as tin cans and aluminium furniture tubing. He was helped in the construction of these by his partner, William Colvig. William (Bill Colvig (1917&ndash2000 was an Electrician and Amateur Musician who was the partner for 33 years of Composer Lou Harrison He did not abandon traditional classical instruments, however, placing them alongside his constructed instruments on a number of occasions. In addition, he played and composed for the Chinese guzheng zither, and presented (with Colvig and Richard Dee) over 300 concerts of traditional Chinese music in the 1970s. The guzheng, also spelled gu zheng or gu-zheng ( or zheng (箏 ( gu-, 古 means "ancient" [1]

He was a composer-in-residence at San Jose State University in San Jose, California during the 1960s. San José State University, commonly shortened to San José State and SJSU, is the founding campus of what became the California State University system The university honored him with an all-Harrison concert in Morris Daley Auditorium in 1969, featuring dancers, singers, and musicians. The highlight of the concert was the world premiere of Harrison's depiction of the story of Orpheus, which utilized soloists, the San Jose State University a capella choir, as well as a unique group of percussionists. Orpheus ( Greek: Ὀρφεύς ˈɔrfiəs ( OHR-fee-uhs) or /ˈɔrfjuːs/ ( OHR'-fews) in English is a figure from Greek mythology born in

Like many other 20th-century composers, Harrison found it hard to support himself with his music, and took a number of other jobs to earn a living, including record salesman, florist, animal nurse, and forestry firefighter.

Harrison was outspoken about his political views, such as his pacifism (he was an active supporter of the international language Esperanto), and the fact that he was gay. is by far the most widely spoken constructed International auxiliary language in the world He was also politically active and informed, including knowledge of gay history. He wrote many pieces with political texts or titles, writing, for instance, Homage to Pacifica for the opening of the Berkley Headquarters of the Pacifica Foundation, and accepting commissions from the Portland Gay Men's Chorus (1988 and 1985) and by the Seattle Men's Chorus to arrange (1987) his Strict Songs, originally for eight baritones, for "a chorus of 120 male singing enthusiasts. Seattle Men's Chorus founded in 1979 in Seattle Washington, bills itself as the largest community chorus in America, and the largest gay men's chorus in the world Some of them good; some not so good. But the number is so fabulous" (ibid, p. 98). Lawrence Mass (ibid, p. 190) describes:

With Lou Harrison. . . being gay is something affirmative. He's proud to be a gay composer and interested in talking about what that might mean. He doesn't feel threatened that this means he won't be thought of as an American composer who is also great and timeless and universal.

Janice Giteck (ibid, p. Janice Giteck (born June 27 1946 in New York) is an American Composer. 194) describes Harrison as:

unabashedly androgynous in his way of approaching creativity. He has a vital connection to the feminine as well as to the masculine. The female part is apparent in the sense of beingness. But at the same time, Lou is very male, too, ferociously active and assertive, rhythmic, pulsing, and aggressive.

On November 2, 1990, the Brooklyn Philharmonic Orchestra premiered Harrison's fourth symphony, which he titled Last Symphony. He combined native American music, ancient music, and Asian music, tying it all together with lush orchestral writing. A special inclusion was a series of Navajo "Coyote Stories. " He made a number of revisions to the symphonies before completing a final version in 1995, which was recorded by Barry Jekowsky and the California Symphony for Argo Records at Skywalker Ranch in Nicasio, California in March 1997. The California Symphony is an American Orchestra based in Walnut Creek, California, in the East Bay region of the San Francisco Argo Records was started in December of 1956 as primarily a jazz subsidiary of Chess Records. Skywalker Ranch is the name of the workplace of Film director and producer George Lucas in secluded but open country near Nicasio California For people with this name see Nicasius. Nicasio (ni-kash'-oh is a contiguous area of unincorporated land in west Marin The CD also included Harrison's Elegy, to the Memory of Calvin Simmons (a tribute to the former conductor of the Oakland Symphony, who drowned in a boating accident in 1982), excerpts from Solstice, Concerto in slendro, and Double Music (his collaboration with John Cage). [3]

Harrison also taught at Mills College, where his students included Jin Hi Kim. Mills College is an independent liberal arts women's college founded in 1852 that offers Jin Hi Kim (b Incheon, South Korea, February 6, 1957) is a Geomungo player and composer

Personal Life

Harrison lived for many years with Bill Colvig in Aptos, California. Aptos is a Census-designated place (CDP in Santa Cruz County, California, United States. He and Colvig purchased land in Joshua Tree, California, where they designed and built a straw bale house. Joshua Tree is a Census-designated place (CDP in San Bernardino County, California, United States. “Straw bale construction is at once an American invention and a sustainable answer to housing needs on and off the reservation He died in Lafayette, Indiana, from a heart attack while on his way to a festival of his music at Ohio State University. Lafayette (ˌlɑːfijˈɛt is a city in Tippecanoe County, Indiana, U Myocardial infarction ( MI or AMI for acute myocardial infarction) also known as a heart attack, occurs when the blood supply The Ohio State University ( OSU) is a Coeducational public Research university in the state of Ohio.

Harrison's music

Many of Harrison's early works are for percussion instruments, often made out of what would usually be regarded as junk such as garbage cans and steel brake pans. He also wrote a number of pieces using Schoenberg's twelve tone technique, including the opera Rapunzel and his Symphony on G (Symphony No. 1) (1952). Several works feature the tack piano, a kind of prepared piano with small nails inserted into the hammers to give the instrument a more percussive sound. A prepared piano is a Piano which has had its sound altered by placing objects (preparations between or on the strings or on the hammers or dampers

Harrison's mature musical style is based on "melodicles", short motifs which are turned backwards and upsidedown to create a musical mode the piece is based on. In Music, a scale is an ordered series of Musical intervals which along with the key or tonic, define the pitches However mode His music is typically spartan in texture but lyrical, and harmony usually simple or sometimes lacking altogether, with the focus instead being on rhythm and melody. In Western music, harmony is the use of different pitches simultaneously and chords actual or implied in Music. Rhythm (from Greek ῥυθμός - rhythmos, "any measured flow or movement symmetry" is the variation of the length and accentuation of In Music, a melody (from Greek μελῳδία - melōidía, "singing chanting" also tune, voice, or Ned Rorem describes, "Lou Harrison's compositions demonstrate a variety of means and techniques. Ned Rorem (born October 23, 1923) is an American Composer and diarist. In general he is a melodist. Rhythm has a significant place in his work, too. Harmony is unimportant, although tonality is. He is one of the first American composers to successfully create a workable marriage between Eastern and Western forms. " Listeners to Harrison's music are often surprised that such a modern, innovative composer actually wrote lyrical melodies and often richly harmonized and orchestrated them, much in the tradition of the late Romantic composers.

Another component of Harrison's aesthetic is what Harry Partch would call corporeality, an emphasis on the physical and the sensual including live, human, performance and improvisation, timbre, rhythm, and the sense of space in his melodic lines, whether solo or in counterpoint, and most notably in his frequent dance collaborations.

Among Harrison's better known works are the Concerto in Slendro, Concerto for Violin with Percussion Orchestra, Organ Concerto with Percussion (1973), which was given at the Proms in London in 1997; the Double Concerto (1981-82) for violin, cello, and Javanese gamelan; the Piano Concerto (1983–85) for piano tuned in Kirnberger #2 (a form of well temperament) and orchestra, which was written for Keith Jarrett and a Concerto for Piano and Javanese Gamelan; as well as four numbered orchestral symphonies. The Proms, more formally known as The BBC Proms, or The Henry Wood Promenade Concerts presented by the BBC, is an eight-week summer season of daily Orchestral This is a list of Musical compositions for Violin, Cello and Orchestra. Well temperament (also circular or circulating temperament is a type of tempered tuning described in twentieth-century Music theory Keith Jarrett (born May 8, 1945 in Allentown Pennsylvania) is an American Pianist and Composer. He also wrote a large number of works in non-traditional forms. Harrison was fluent in several languages including American Sign Language, Mandarin and Esperanto, and several of his pieces have Esperanto titles and texts, most notably La Koro Sutro (1973). American Sign Language (or ASL Ameslan is the dominant Sign language of the Deaf community in the United States, in the English-speaking parts is by far the most widely spoken constructed International auxiliary language in the world

Like Charles Ives, Harrison completed four symphonies. He typically combined a variety of the musical forms and languages that he preferred. This is quite apparent in the fourth symphony, recorded by the California Symphony for Argo Records, as well as his third symphony, which was performed and broadcast by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The San Francisco Symphony ( SFS) is a leading Orchestra based in San Francisco California.

Sources

References

  1. ^ Leta E. Miller, liner notes for Argo CD 455 590-2
  2. ^ http://www.publicradio.org/tools/media/player/composersdatebook/0207/020407_datebook.ram
  3. ^ Argo Records liner notes

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Obituaries and remembrances

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Listening

The Del Sol Quartet is a String quartet based in San Francisco, California.
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